The streets of Stony Brook were filled with more than 300 runners and an estimated 460 walkers participating in the Walk for Beauty and Hercules on the Harbor 10K Run Oct. 22. Cancer survivors along with family members and friends collect donations to support their walk or run, which takes them through the scenic and historic Stony Brook. All proceeds go directly to a targeted research fund at Stony Brook Medicine for Breast Cancer Research and The WMHO Unique Boutique for wigs.
By Daniel Dunaief
Counting penguins is like riding the highs and lows of Yankees rookie Aaron Judge’s home run streaks, followed by his series of strike outs. He’s not as bad as his strike outs suggest, although he’s also not a sure thing at the plate either.
Similarly, in local populations, the Adélie penguin, which waddles to and fro squawking on land and gliding gracefully through the water, isn’t as clear a barometer of changes in the environment. Also, like Judge, when populations rise and fall, people are eager to offer their explanations for exactly what’s happening, even if the sensational explanations — he’s not that good, no, wait, he’s the greatest ever — may overstate the reality.
“We have to be careful not to be overreactive,” said Heather Lynch, an associate professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. “The concern is that, when we see increases or decreases, the implication is that there’s a miraculous recovery or a catastrophic crash.”
That, however, is inconsistent with Lynch’s recent results, which were published in the journal Nature Communications. Examining penguin data from 1982 to 2015, Lynch, Christian Che-Castaldo, who is a postdoctoral researcher in Lynch’s lab, and nine other researchers looked to see if there’s a way to connect the size of the population to changes in the environment. The study involved two teams of researchers, one supported by NASA and the other backed by the National Science Foundation.
“It’s a noisy system,” Lynch concluded. Managers of the populations of krill, small crustaceans that are the mainstay of the Adélie diet, try to use time series of key indicator species to understand what’s going on in the marine realm. In this article, Lynch said, local Adélie penguin populations may not be a clear signal of the health of the krill stocks because penguin abundance fluctuates for reasons she and her team couldn’t pinpoint.
These penguins, which Lynch has counted during her field work in the Antarctic, exhibit changes in population that can run contrary to the health, or stressed condition, of the environment.
“You can’t have your finger on the pulse” with the available data, Lynch said. “Part of our inability to model year-to-year changes is because we can’t measure the right things in the environment.”
The drivers of abundance fluctuations likely involve other animals or aspects of the krill fisheries they couldn’t model, she suggested.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about what penguins do under water, where they spend a large portion of their time and where they feed,” Grant Humphries, who was in Lynch’s lab for a year and now runs his own data science company in Scotland called Black Bawks Data Science Ltd, explained in an email. “The signals that drive year to year changes might actually lie there.”
Tom Hart, a researcher of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford who was not involved in this study, explores local scale variation in penguin populations. Locally, Hart said in an interview by Skype, “Things are incredibly noisy. When you aggregate, you get good signals, but with some error.” He suggested that this research drives him on further, showing that “local influences are important” because there’s so much variance left to explain. Lynch’s research is “a really good study and shows very well what’s happening on the regional scale, but leaves open what happens below that,” he said.
Indeed, Lynch suggested that by putting sites together, researchers can look at larger areas, which provide a clearer picture on shorter time scales.
Michael Polito, an assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University who was not involved in the study, suggests that this extensive analysis indicates that “you can still look at the relationship between the abundance of penguins and the environment in a robust way. Even though any individual time series may not be the best way to understand these relationships, in the aggregate you can use them.”
Managers who set fishery policies in Antarctic waterways are often concerned about harvesting too much krill, leaving the penguins without enough food to survive and feed their chicks.
The challenge with this result, Lynch acknowledges, is that it makes setting krill boundaries more difficult.
A strategy that involves resetting conservation targets based on annual monitoring appears unrealistic given these results, Lynch said. “From a practical standpoint, we threw in everything we could and could explain only a tiny fraction of the variation,” she said.
Hart added that this is “not an argument to fish away,” he said. “We need to understand what’s going on at a local scale and we’re not there yet.”
To get people involved, Lynch and her team created a science competition, called Random Walk of the Penguins, to see who could predict the overall penguin populations for Adélie, gentoo and chinstrap penguins from the 2014 to 2017 seasons.
The competition, which was a collaborative effort with Oceanites, Black Bawks Data Science and Driven Data included $16,000 in prize money, which was donated by NASA. Entrants could use data from the 1982 through the 2013 seasons. The contest drew competitors from six continents. Of the five winners, all were from different countries.
Humphries, who was the lead on the data science computation, said the results were “somewhat humbling” because competitors were able to make “decent predictions” using only the time series. “With long-term predictions and for determining the tipping points, there is still a lot of work to be done.”
Lynch is relieved that her co-authors supported the direction the article took. “I’m a skeptic by nature and more than happy to throw orthodoxy (or even my own previous work) under the bus,” she wrote in an email. “I do hope that others will use our model as a starting point and we’ll never go back to the old days where everyone looked only at ‘their sites.’”
By Irene Ruddock
Now in its 37th year, the Setauket Artists’ Exhibition, featuring the works of over 40 local artists and artists from all over Long Island, will return to the Setauket Neighborhood House, 95 Main St., Setauket from Oct. 22 to Nov. 20 with viewing daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, Oct. 22 from 1 to 4 p.m.
Participating artists this year include Lana Ballot, Ross Barbara, Eleanor Berger, Robert Berson, Rina Betro, Sheila Breck, Renee Caine, Al Candia, Gail Chase, Anthony Davis, Julie Doczi, Jeanette Dick, W.A. Dodge, Paul Edelson, Stu Gottfried, Donna Grossman, Peter Hahn, Melissa Imossi, Laurence Johnston, Anne Katz, Flo Kemp, Karen Kemp, Michael R. Kutzing, John Mansueto, Jane McGraw Teubner, Terry McManus, Eleanor Meier, Fred Mendelsohn, Muriel Musarra, Genia Neuschatz, Iacopo Pasquinelli, Paula Pelletier, Denis Ponsot, Joe Reboli, Joan Rockwell, Robert Roehrig, Irene Ruddock, Eileen Sanger, Carole Link Scinta, Sungsook Setton, Barbara Siegel, Patricia Sloan, Angela Stratton, Marlene Weinstein, Laura Westlake and Patricia Yantz.
The distinguished judge this year is David Peikon, a “contemporary realism” oil painter who is an instructor at the Art League of Long Island. Peikon has had over 18 solo shows and his work is in corporate and private collections throughout the world.
Each year, the Setauket Artists honor a special artist who’s work is admired and who has contributed greatly to the show. It is an award especially appreciated since it is chosen by one’s peers. Muriel Musarra, a watercolorist and oil painter and a member of the Setauket Artists for 37 years, is this year’s choice. Her work is in many collections and exudes a certain quiet peacefulness that has charmed the community for years.
The three paintings being offered for the raffle this year are the following: “Giclee of Giverny #1” by Renee Caine, a recent Artist of the Month recipient for LIMarts; “An Afternoon in Tuscany,” an original pastel by Donna Grossman, instructor of drawing and oil painting at The Atelier in Saint James; and “Nissequogue Overlook,” an original acrylic by John Mansueto, a well-known painter from the South Shore.
Fred Bryant of Bryant Funeral Home has generously offered to be the Setauket Artists sponsor again. The artists applaud Bryant’s loyalty by providing funds that have made the exhibit more professional.
This year, the Setauket Artists introduce their new website, www.setauketartists.com. We invite you to take a look and sign up to join our mailing list. The website will tell you about the 37-year-old organization called Setauket Artists: its history, artists, paintings, Children’s Scholarship Fund, and our newest feature, art consultation.
Art consultation is designed to create a personal relationship with buyers who may want to purchase a piece of art but are unsure of where to begin to obtain art that best suits their surroundings. After suggesting many paintings, we will bring the actual paintings to your home or office where you will see the artwork in its environment, with no obligation to purchase. Art consultation is available all year long; we look forward to providing you with affordable paintings that truly fit your needs and our motto: Art for a Lifetime.
The Setauket Artists will continue their art scholarship fund for children in the Setauket schools, presenting these awards at the reception opening. This year’s recipients of the awards for drawing and painting are Will Boonin in memory of Setauket Drawing Group member Andrew Schmitt, Jaden Chimelis in memory of Setauket Artist Burt Woods and Paloma Papageorge in memory of artist JoAnn Coane, given by her husband Jim Coane.
If you miss the first reception, join the Setauket Artists for a free wine and cheese reception on Friday, Nov. 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. where music will be provided once again by singer Caterina Dee.
For additional information, visit www.setauketneighborhoodhouse.com, Setauket Artists on Facebook or call 631-365-1312.
Irene Ruddock is the coordinator of the Setauket Artists.
For one Eagle Scout, earning coveted merit badges has been more than a pastime; it’s been a mission. The undertaking has led him to earn all 137 badges a Scout can receive — an accomplishment only 6 percent of scouts in the nation have achieved, according to the Boy Scouts of America website.
John Ninia, of Poquott, a senior at Ward Melville High School, moved up from Cub Scout to Boy Scout when he was 11 years old. Ninia said it took him six years to earn all 137 badges. A scout needs 21 badges to become an Eagle Scout — 16 being mandatory ones.
“I just went for all of them,” the Troop 70 Eagle Scout said.
When he was 12 years old, Ninia said he attended Boy Scout camp, where his mission to collect every badge first became his goal.
“I remember after my first week of summer camp, I was on my way home and I was really thrilled,” he said. “Usually you can get five badges if you’re really into it but I got about 11, and my parents mentioned that I could go back for a second week.”
Ninia said he immediately signed up for the second week, and when he earned 20 badges that summer, he said it was a great feeling. The Scout said some merit badges, such as one for art, can take a day and a half, while personal fitness, family life and other badges require more time, even months. He said a scuba badge took several days of training to earn certification, while achieving the water skiing one was the most difficult, but he kept trying until he could stand up on the skis.
Ninia completed three Hornaday projects, which are tasks that involve the environment. He eliminated invasive knotweed, a Japanese plant, at West Meadow Beach, planted trees at Frank Melville Memorial Park and installed a rain garden in the Village of Poquott’s California Park. Working to improve the environment is a passion of his, and he plans to major in environmental studies in college.
Frank Melville Memorial Foundation Park Board President Robert Reuter said Ninia worked diligently to clear a substantial vine-choked area adjacent to the Bates House in the park. His work saved existing trees and allowed for the planting of several native white flowering dogwoods.
“It’s revealing of his commitment that I get calls from John offering to continue the work,” Reuter said. “This young man has a bright future underpinned by his extraordinary personal achievements and service to community.”
Robert Mandell, who was Ninia’s troop leader for the majority of the time he has been in Boy Scouts, said he remembers the teenager coming to him telling him how he earned badges for various activities such as glass blowing and concrete mixing. The former troop leader he said he would question him at length about what he did to earn the badge.
“I quizzed them like the FBI,” Mandell said.
He said he wasn’t surprised when Ninia earned every badge, saying he is a smart, hardworking teenager.
“This young man is driven,” the former troop leader said.
While the experiences earning the badges have provided great memories for Ninia, he said what he has enjoyed most during his Scouting years has been “providing leadership to a group of scouts and helping them with their own ability to rank up.”
“This young man has a bright future underpinned by his extraordinary personal achievements and service to community.”
— Robert Reuter
Despite a busy schedule with school, the cross-country team and DECA, Ninia said it’s important to make time for Scouting.
The high school senior said one can no longer be a scout after 18, but while his days as a scout may be over soon, he hopes to always be a part of the organization in some way, even though he’s not sure about being a troop leader.
“It’s hard, and I do have a lot of stuff and I’m a busy guy, but Scouting is something I’ve loved so I’ve always been able to make time for it,” he said. His advice to other Scouts? “Try your best and shoot for the stars.”
Ninia’s father Jerry said the family, which includes mom Lynn and siblings James and Christina, is proud of their Scout and his accomplishments.
“He’s a good kid,” his father said. “He works very hard He perseveres. He has a can-do attitude. He’s just the kind of guy that makes things happen.”
Achieving merit badges makes a Scout a more well-rounded individual, according to Jerry Ninia.
“When you think about it, 137 merit badges, it touches on everything from art to architecture to woodworking to metalworking to horseback riding to law and medicine to water sports and everything in between,” he said. “You can probably strike up a conversation with anyone as a young adult and speak to anyone from practically any walk of life because you’ll probably feel some commonality.”
The Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook will welcome Austin-based Slaid Cleaves in concert this Saturday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m.
Cleaves’ self-penned biography simply says: “Grew up in Maine. Lives in Texas. Writes songs. Makes Records. Travels around. Tries to be good.” A busy tour schedule, fueled by an engaging stage personality, have won Cleaves a devoted fan base which includes novelist Stephen King, who wrote the liner notes to Cleaves’ album, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away.
Slaid gained national attention with his 1997 recording, No Angel Knows, produced by the legendary Gurf Morlix. Cleaves’ follow up album, Broke Down, brought him national airplay with the title song (a co-write with Rod Picott) and “One Good Year,” a Cleaves/Steve Brooks co-write. Six albums later, Slaid Cleaves continues to write powerful songs as evidenced by his brand new album, Ghost On The Car Radio. (www.slaidcleaves.com)
This is Slaid’s only area appearance on his current U.S. tour. He’ll be accompanied by mandolin and fiddle player, Chojo Jacques.
Advance sale tickets: $25 at www.sundaystreet.org through Friday, October 20th. Tickets at the door on the day of the show are $30 (cash only). For more information, call 631-751-0066.
By Rita J. Egan
When he passed Oct. 10 at age 85 from complications following knee replacement surgery, civic leader Bob de Zafra left behind a legacy in the Three Village area that will be remembered for decades.
The professor and scientist
A resident of Setauket for more than 50 years, de Zafra was a former president of what is now known as the Three Village Civic Association and Three Village Historical Society, as well as a co-founder of the Three Village Community Trust. His love for the area began when he moved from Connecticut to start his career in Stony Brook University’s physics department as a professor, according to Linwood Lee, a research professor at SBU.
“He helped establish experimental physics in our physics department, which was very heavily theoretical at the time, and he was really a leader in doing that,” Lee said.
He added that de Zafra conducted research in atmospheric physics, which led to him studying the Earth’s ozone layer. During trips to the South Pole and McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, de Zafra and his SBU colleagues discovered in 1986 that chlorofluorocarbon, a type of hydrocarbon, was a cause for the expansion of the ozone hole. In honor of his revolutionary climate-change work there, an Antarctic rock ridge now bears his last name.
The civic leader
In the 2002 Men and Women of the Year issue of The Village Times Herald, in which he was named Man of the Year in Civics as a “steadfast preservationist,” the professor emeritus said he saw his hometown in Connecticut “ruined” by development.
“I was sure that wherever I lived, I was going to do my best to make sure that sort of destruction didn’t happen,” he said.
State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) said de Zafra accomplished his goal. When Englebright was running for county legislator 35 years ago, he said the Setauket resident approached him and told him there was a need to protect Detmer Farm, across from the Setauket Post Office on Route 25A. The property was eventually saved from development.
“It was the centerpiece of good planning,” Englebright said. “If we won the effort to protect that open space it would mean that we had protected an important part of the watershed of Setauket Harbor and the viewshed of everyone who visits our community, or we would have taken a step toward becoming something like Queens.”
The assemblyman said the importance of saving the Detmer Farm property was only the first of countless lessons he learned from de Zafra. Englebright said a traffic island once existed at North County Road and Ridgeway Avenue adjacent to Gallery North, and with de Zafra’s encouragement, he secured the Town of Brookhaven Highway Department to cover the road with truckloads of soil.
“It was one of the first restorations that rolled back the development wave, and it was Bob that said this should be accomplished,” Englebright said.
The assemblyman said he was impressed by how de Zafra, who was instrumental in the preservation of Forsythe Meadow in Stony Brook, used his own resources to buy older houses in the area and renovate them including his own home. With the woodlands behind his property, he bought the land parcel by parcel to protect the trees; the land includes a meadow of flowers. Most recently the civic leader bought the historic Timothy Smith House, recognized as the first town hall in Brookhaven, to renovate it.
“The model of what he did with his own personal resources to enhance our community is a heroic profile,” Englebright said. “He did it quietly without fanfare but in my mind he is a civic hero of the first order. He lived what he preached and was absolutely genuine.”
Three Village Historical Society historian Beverly C. Tyler and de Zafra met in 1974 when the Three Village Bicentennial Committee formed. Tyler said de Zafra was responsible for the greening of 25A by having 222 trees planted along the road from the Stony Brook train station to East Setauket, and he was instrumental in convincing local shopping centers to use unified signs.
In The Village Times Dec. 30, 1976, de Zafra was named Man of the Year for his greening efforts. The professor said during his commute to SBU he became frustrated with what he felt was the destruction of Route 25A. While he was part of the civic association, the organization had other priorities at the time, so he saw the forming of the bicentennial committee as an opportunity to beautify the road. Through letter writing and fundraising, de Zafra raised more than $13,000 for the planting.
“You only get a chance to do something like this once every 100 years,” he said during the 1976 interview. “I’m glad I grabbed hold of mine when it came my way.”
The success of the project and many others of de Zafra’s didn’t surprise Tyler.
“Bob was very well organized and relentless,” Tyler said. “He just took on a project and was a bear about it. He just kept at it no matter what the problem was until he got a successful conclusion. He was very good at talking to people and getting them to see his point of view without overwhelming them.”
Herb Mones, a former president of the Three Village Civic Association, met de Zafra 25 years ago through the organization and praised his friend for working with builders and local elected officials to curb development and maintain the historical and architectural integrity of the area. Mones said right up until de Zafra passed, he attended any event that was for the benefit of Three Village residents. Mones said his friend felt a responsibility to make the area a better place to live in.
“The thing that always impressed me is that Bob had a tremendous amount of energy and interest in preserving, protecting and enhancing the community in every way possible,” Mones said.
Current Three Village Civic Association President Jonathan Kornreich, who considers de Zafra a friend and mentor, echoed Mones’ sentiments.
“I can’t think of three people together who could fill his shoes, so great was the depth of his energy, passion and knowledge,” Kornreich said.
Local author John Broven also met de Zafra through the civic association and said the former president’s accomplishments were admirable as he fought random development rigorously, unknown to most residents.
“If Bob had been born in England, like his wife Julia, he would assuredly have been granted a knighthood for being such a dedicated community gatekeeper, let alone his incredible scientific achievements,” Broven said.
Cynthia Barnes, co-founder of the Three Village Community Trust with de Zafra, said he knew a great deal of municipality and zoning code laws and was a skillful researcher. His contributions were vitally important to the trust’s mission of preserving local properties, which included moving the Rubber Factory Houses to the trust’s Bruce House headquarters.
“He was able to grasp the whole picture yet delve into the details to see where the trouble lay, and point to the areas of weakness to try to strengthen them,” Barnes said.
“He certainly brought us a long way toward [preserving],” Barnes said. “Because I think everything we saved, with the help of our elected officials as well, he was definitely a motivating force.”
Brookhaven Town Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) said de Zafra worked with her and her team on various issues and initiatives over the last few years. Most recently he was part of the Citizens Advisory Committee for Route 25A.
“Bob’s untimely passing is just before the acceptance of the 25A community visioning document later this month,” Cartright said. “Bob cared so deeply for community land use issues and for this project, and we would like to find a way to honor and recognize Bob’s massive body of work and contributions during the process and in the future.”
The person
On top of his accomplishments, those who knew him praised de Zafra as a modest man.
“He wouldn’t want to be called ‘doctor,’ he wanted to be called Bob,” Mones said. “He never referenced his degree, his status within his field, his experiences that he had. He never used that as criteria in determining what he had to say or what he was doing. It was always based upon on the merits of the case.”
Englebright said de Zafra will be remembered by many as a man of action.
“He was the leading voice for protecting the essence of this place,” the assemblyman said. “It wasn’t just his voice, it was his action as well.”
County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), who worked closely with de Zafra while she was president of the civic association, summed up how his family and friends were feeling the day of his funeral Oct. 17.
“The loss of Bob de Zafra leaves a hole in our collective heart,” she said. “He played a vital role in so many organizations as a watchdog for our community. Meticulous, passionate, diligent, generous, persistent and charming in his own way — he will be missed.”
Ward Melville’s soccer team has an advantage most teams don’t: the connection between twin sisters Kerri and Nicole Liucci.
On their senior night, in a 3-0 win over William Floyd Oct. 16, the two scored a goal apiece, and assisted on each other’s tallies to help the Patriots (10-3-2, 9-2-2 League I) power through.
“We have twin telepathy,” Kerri Liucci said. “We work hard together.”
Nicole Liucci was first to find the back of the net after her twin received a pass from the corner, and moved the ball front and center in the box. With a mid-air knock-in, the Liucci sisters made it an early 1-0 advantage.
“We have a really strong bond and we know where each other is at all times,” Nicole Liucci said. “I kept saying to myself, ‘I need to get the ball in the net.’ My sister passed it to me and I kicked it right in.”
More than 25 minutes passed before the Patriots propelled the ball into the net a second time. On a strike from 30 yards out, midfielder Arianna Barbieri found the far left corner, which was a surprise even to her.
“I decided to just wing it,” she said. “Watching it sail over and into the net felt really good. We were pushing the ball as hard as we could trying to score early and shut them down.”
Ward Melville’s defense held down the Colonials in the second half, despite losing returning All-County defender Kayla Winicki to a torn ACL in the first game of the season against Northport. Liv Halvorsen has stepped up to fill her place on the back line, knocking away chances and battling for crucial possession, which she’ll need to continue if Ward Melville wants to win a League I title.
“We had some girls step in and take over and they’ve been great and adjusted well,” Ward Melville head coach John Diehl said. “We’re gelling now and coming together in different ways.”
Kerri Liucci put the game out of reach with 12 minutes left when she sent the ball into the corner from close range. She had a chance at a goal seconds earlier, when she pushed the ball past a fallen William Floyd goalkeeper, but a defender batted it away. She said she was overjoyed to finally get on the stat sheet.
“I really wanted to score on senior night,” she said. “I tried, put all my effort behind the ball and it went in, and it felt amazing because I was working hard the whole game to get a goal. It was rewarding.”
The three seniors that scored on Ward Melville’s senior night are the three longest tenured members of the team.
“The girls get so excited for this day,” Diehl said of his 14 upperclassmen. “Their energy is high, their spirits are high and they ended up doing well. They’ve endured a lot and they’re a nice group of seniors. I love seeing them happy — it makes me smile.”
After what could potentially have been the last home game for Ward Melville this season, the Patriots soaked it in as the bench cleared in celebration of a successful shutout. Ward Melville travels to Brentwood for the final game of the regular season Oct. 18. If the Patriots come away with a win, they’ll also grab a piece of the League I title for the first time in years.
“Brentwood is always a strong team,” Diehl said. “It’s always tough against Brentwood at their house, too, because they play on grass and we’re not used to that surface, but heading into this last week I like where we are.”
The Stony Brook University Seawolves football team won their homecoming game 38-24 against the University of New Hampshire Wildcats. At the Oct. 14 game, Veronica Fox was crowned homecoming queen and PP Pandya was named homecoming king.
By Daniel Dunaief
More than four days after lift off, pioneering astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed in the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon. The NASA schedule, which included preparing the vehicle for an emergency abort of the mission in the event of a problem, called for a nap of four hours. Once they were there, however, Armstrong and Aldrin couldn’t imagine taking a four-hour respite.
“Both Armstrong and Aldrin were, understandably, excited about where they were and decided to forgo the sleeping and changed history,” Thomas Williams, element scientist in Human Factors and Behavioral Performance at NASA, described in an email.
A future trip to Mars, however, would involve considerably longer delayed gratification, with the round trip estimated to take over 400 days. The stresses and strains, the anxiety about an uncertain future and the increasing distance from family and friends, not to mention the smell of cut grass and the appearance of holiday decorations, could weigh on even the most eager of astronauts.
Determined to prepare for contingencies, NASA is funding research to understand ways to combat the mental health strains that might affect future astronauts who dare to go further than anyone has ever gone.
‘Being in long-duration space missions with other people, we expect the mental health risk will be much more elevated’. — Adam Gonzalez
Gonzalez, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Stony Brook University, received over $1 million in funding from NASA to explore ways to help these future astronauts who might be anxious or depressed when they’re on the way to the red planet.
In a highly competitive process, Gonzalez received the financial support to provide guidance on what NASA considers a low-probability, high-consequence mental health event, according to Williams.
Gonzalez “was funded because of the soundness of his research proposal and the clinical and technological expertise of the research team he assembled to help NASA address this research gap,” Williams explained.
Gonzalez started providing three different types of psychological assistance to 135 people in the middle of September. He is testing ways to provide mental health assistance with a delay that could require over 40 minutes to travel back and forth.
One group of test subjects will use a system called myCompass, which is a mental health self-help program. Another group will use myCompass coupled with a delayed text messaging response from a therapist, and a third will have a myCompass system along with delayed video messaging from a therapist.
“Being in long-duration space missions with other people — in this case, months and potentially years — stuck in extremely close quarters with others, we expect the mental health risk will be much more elevated relative to what they are going to have on the International Space Station,” Gonzalez said.
Williams said astronauts to date have not had any diagnosable disorders, but NASA has seen fluctuations in their mood, which appears linked to workload demands and the phase of the mission, Williams said. For astronauts, NASA does not want a continuing negative trend that, over a longer term, could turn into a problem.
“Part of what we hope to achieve with [Gonzalez’s] research is a validated approach to address any of these concerns,” Williams said, adding that astronauts typically understand that their contributions involve work in “high-demand, extreme environments,” Williams said.
Still, like explorers in earlier centuries, astronauts on a trip to Mars will journey farther and for a longer period of time than anyone up to that point. MyCompass is a “good, efficacious program” that takes a “trans-diagnostic cognitive behavioral therapy approach,” Gonzalez said. He suggested that the program is broad enough to help individuals manage their emotions more generally, as opposed to targeting specific types of health disorders.
Gonzalez emphasized that the choice of using myCompass as a part of this experiment was his and might not be NASA’s. The purpose of this study is to investigate different methods for communicating for mental health purposes when real-time communication isn’t possible.
William suggested that Gonzalez’s work, among others, could lead to individualized procedures for each astronaut. In addition to his work with NASA, Gonzalez also assists people at the front lines after man-made or natural disasters. He has worked with Benjamin Luft, the director of Stony Brook University’s WTC Wellness Program, on a program that offers assistance to first responders after the 9/11 attacks.
Gonzalez’s father, Peter, was a police officer who worked on the World Trade Center cleanup and recovery efforts. The elder Gonzalez has since had 9/11-related health conditions.
Gonzalez and associate professor Anka Vujanovic, the co-director of the Trauma and Anxiety Clinic at the University of Houston, are putting together a research project for the Houston area. Vujanovic did a mental health survey on Houston area firefighters earlier this year. They are inviting these firefighters to complete an online survey and telephone assessment to determine their mental health after Hurricane Harvey.
They are also conducting a three- to four-hour resilience training workshop for Houston area firefighters engaged in Harvey disaster relief efforts. “This resilience program, developed by [Gonzalez] and his colleagues, has shown promising results in reducing various mental health symptoms when tested among first responders in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy,” Vujanovic explained in an email.
Vujanovic has known Gonzalez for over 10 years and suggested his questions were focused on “how can we better serve others, how can we improve existing interventions and how can we develop culturally sensitive approaches for vulnerable, understudied populations.” Gonzalez, who grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and came to Stony Brook in 2012, said he was always interested in helping others.
Williams suggested that this kind of research can help people outside the space program. “We openly share and encourage the sharing of any of our relevant research findings to help address societal needs,” he added. Gonzalez’s research is “a great example of how a NASA focus on delivering personalized interventions in support of long-duration spaceflight could potentially be generalized to more rural settings where mental health providers may be scarce.”
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